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Presented at Simian, Web of Support: A Video Program and Library showcased videos and printed matter within both a cinema and a reading room setting. The exhibition positions itself as a critical ally of the global Palestinian movement, aiming to foster a network of support, connection, and exchange. Comprising three distinct parts, the presentation offers a nuanced exploration of solidarity, resistance, and the pursuit of justice within the Palestinian experience. It also dived into the relationship we maintain with technology and imageries of violence.

PART I : CyberPalestine 2.0

CyberPalestine 2.0 is a looped and durational screening of films by four artists— Zein Majali, Dana Dawud, E Rady and Asma Abo Mostafa. The film program investigates the role of cyberspace during periods of oppression and raises questions about digital activism, surveillance, and the dissemination of narratives in the digital age, particularly in the context of Palestinian struggles and resistance. The title takes its inspiration from the 1999 short film Cyber Palestine by influential palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman.

In the age of mass media and rapid information sharing, cyberspace has profoundly influenced the memorialization of Palestinian culture. Historically misrepresented by mainstream media, Palestinians have utilized the internet to document their subjugation, disseminate their history and culture, and provide support resources. Yet, the digital realm plays a dual role: perpetuating stereotypes while unveiling hidden realities.

This video exhibition pays tribute to Palestinian director Elia Suleiman’s 1999 short film Cyber Palestine. Drawing from biblical references, the film portrays Joseph, a soon-to-be father, searching for "Cyber Palestine" on Yahoo!. The fragmented online depiction of Palestine, seen through an "under construction" webpage and a phantom "home" button, mirrors its real-world challenges, suggesting the difficulty of a return, even virtual.

Likes and scrolls, swipe left, swipe right, ask an AI, LinkedIn in the morning, Instagram at night; cyberspace is omnipresent. What trajectory does it take in the event of a genocide? While the Vietnam War was the first conflict broadcast on TV, the 2020s have seen ethnic violence and crises unfold directly on phones and screens. This exhibition explores artistic expressions from and about Palestine's heritage, revealing biases in technology's construction while transcending a binary understanding of its role. Ultimately, it positions technology as both a tool and a battleground for cultural representation and memory.

PART II: Testimony of a Gesture

Testimony of a Gesture is a presentation of two short films that examine the intrusion of colonial power into private realms. Letter to a Friend by Emily Jacir explores the dynamics of oppression onto her family home, where a personal letter transforms into a public testimony. In this video essay, Jacir narrates the anticipation of a future crime yet to occur. Freedom of Movement by Fadl Fakhouri investigates party spaces and dancing to analyze constraints on physical movement. By applying the concept of choreopolicing, as defined by philosopher and dance theorist André Lepecki, the film critiques colonial power and its regulation of bodily motion, even those purported to be liberatory.

A hand, a gesture, a childhood home... What marks does subjugation leave on bodies and memories? Time fragments, the future is anticipated, the present dissolves, the past resurfaces. Intimacy is threatened - it is not a right for all anymore. The private sphere, personal order, blends with collective destiny. Engraved in flesh and stone, history is revealed in the smallest crevices. Investigation, the process of uncovering the truth through testimony, correspondence, and observation, becomes a daily habit. Where does intimacy lie amidst control? This video program features two video works that illustrate how coloniality permeates deep layers of intimacy, intruding into personal realms and residing deep within individual experiences.

PART III: A Room of One’s Own

A Room of One’s Own serves as a temporary library, showcasing literature and material on decolonial art. The reading room seeks to create a critical dialogue around issues of identity, resistance, and cultural reclamation, with the aim to envelop a better understanding of the complexities in these matters.

Inspired by Virginia Woolf's influential 1936 essay and the subsequent critique by Alice Walker, which expands on themes of social injustice and emancipation, this reading room is dedicated to documenting decolonial art history, with a focus on South-Westerner Asian North-African (SWANA) writers. It features a curated collection of books, articles, and writings, inviting visitors to engage with the works at a human pace. This temporary library encourages collective learning, reflection, and discussion. Guests are welcome to come and go freely, invite friends, and enjoy tea, coffee, and water, creating a space for both growth and conversation.

A Room of One’s Own is organized with the support of Franziska Hoppe, and Det Lilla Rum.

About the artists:

Emily Jacir (b. 1974, Betlehem, PS) is an artist, filmmaker, and educator, she lives and works between Bethlehem and Rome. Her artistic practice spans a range of strategies including film, photography, sculpture, interventions, archiving, performance, video, writing, and sound. She investigates silenced histories, exchange, translation, transformation, resistance, and movement. Exhibiting globally since 1994, her awards include the Golden Lion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007), the Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum (2008), and the Alpert Award (2011). She is the founder and Executive Director of Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research in Bethlehem.

Fadl Fakhouri (b.1997, San Francisco, USA) centers on dots and lines as a method of pursuing definition and positionality. Through the utility of body, images and contextualized objects, they formulate poetic statements of determination. Fadl has exhibited work at SFAI (San Francisco), A.I.R. (New York), Times Square (New York), Jacobs Institute (Berkeley), Worth Ryder (Berkeley), The Cincinnati Art Museum and The Jewish Museum (New York).

Zein Majali (b. 1989, Amman, JO) is a Jordanian-Palestinian artist currently based in London where she completed her MA in Contemporary Art Practice at the Royal College of Art in 2022. Formerly an engineer and data analyst, she turned to the arts out of an urgency to archive and examine the accelerated cultural shifts in the Arab world. She is currently an artist-in-residence at Somerset House Studios: Music & Sound residency

Dana Dawud (b. 1992, Jordan) is a Jordanian-Palestinian Dubai-based artist and writer working across film, sound and digital media. Her work incorporates projection mapping, archival footage and new technologies which dynamically interact within the time space of the art work and the real time intervention of the outside of livable reality. Dawud was a contributing speaker at Global Art Forum 17 (2024) and a contributing artist in the fifteenth issue of L’Amour – La Mort – On God (2024), a quarterly literary magazine.

E Rady (b.1996, Sarasota, USA) is a Syrian-American multidisciplinary performance, video, and installation artist living in New York City. Traversing the intricate overlap of Queer identity, ethnicity, and nationalism within the confines of an imperial United States — E Rady’s work dissects their intersectionality while carrying out interrogations of their surroundings. E Rady is currently attending Hunter College as an MFA student in visual arts.

Asma Abo Mostafa (b. 1999, Würzburg, DE) is a multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker, currently living and working in Amman, Jordan. In her work, she addresses the exploration and analysis of hierarchical structures and social constructs with a focus on cultural and political heritage. Combining new media with traditional crafts, she creates emotional landscapes that often relate to her own immigrant narrative, having grown up in Europe, as well as her French-Palestinian and indigenous Bedouin identity. Her experience stretches from cinematography and storytelling to sculpture, painting and curation.

The exhibition unfolded from June 2024 until the end of August 2024.